WEE ROBBIE
We knew it was a bad idea to isolate ourselves so much when it was so near her time but it had been years since our last holiday and besides, her doctors assured us that we were at least three weeks away from the birth.
It wasn't planned-not at all. We'd settled for a couple of weeks' rest and I'd booked a three-month sabbatical from the office, hoping to get some work done on the house. Then we won the competition. One week anywhere in Britain of our choosing as long as we took the holiday in the next month. One day we were in our flat in London, surrounded by half-finished building work, noise, dust, and general aggravation, the next we were all alone on the west coast of Scotland, in a cottage by the shore on Jura-just us, the seals, and the view over the sea to Argyll.
I wasn't sure at first. I wanted to be near a hospital, just in case of emergencies, but she insisted. It would be our last holiday alone for a while, she was fit and healthy, and she wanted to do it.
The nearest house was five miles south, the nearest doctor twice that distance. To the north and west there were only the rugged hills and the deer. We didn't even have a boat. At least there was a road, a single-track lane with passing places. It had recently been resurfaced and we had been provided with a new Range Rover for the duration. I was confident that we could reach the doctor's house in less than twenty minutes in event of an emergency. That was quicker than I could have managed it in London. And we had warned the doctor we were coming. I had talked myself round to the idea and I wasn't worried. I should have been.
We arrived late. Jura is not the easiest place to get to. It involved a flight to Glasgow and a short hop over to Islay. The Range Rover was waiting at Islay airport, which is more a glorified field than an airstrip. After that, it is a fifteen-mile trip to the Port Askaig ferry, a small ramshackle affair that can take four cars on a calm day across the half mile of treacherous waters towards the stunning mountains of Jura.
Once on the island, it was a single track road all the way. There is only one road twenty miles of it-with Craighouse, the only town, halfway along, but we were going right to the far end.
We stopped in the one and only hotel for a meal but we were too late to pick up any other provisions. That would have to wait till the morning.
It was dark when we arrived and Sandra was too tired to do anything other than fall into bed and sleep. As for me, I was restless. I never believed that I would miss the bustle of London's streets, but the lack of noise here had me on edge.
The only sound was the gentle lapping of the sea on the rocks only ten yards from the cottage's front door. Occasionally there would be the forlorn cry of a gull or the croaking of a crow, but apart from that, it was silent and dark and strangely disquieting.
I paced the floors, studying the titles of the books on the long shelves round the walls, listening to the radio, drinking whiskey and trying to pretend that I didn't miss the television.
It was very late by the time I snuggled into bed, taking advantage of the radiating heat from my pregnant wife beside me. I believe I slept soundly, I don't remember any dreams, and nothing disturbed me during the night.
She woke me the next morning with a whisper.
'Get up. Hurry. You've got to see this.'
I was still groggy when I raised my head to see her leaving the room. I got out of bed, wincing at the cold seeping through the floorboards, and joined her at the window in the front room.
'Look', she said, 'Isn't it wonderful?'
It was very early morning-the sun was just coming up over the hills of Argyll, spreading a pink glow across the wispy clouds.
The sea was being slightly ruffled by a small breeze and, there in the foreground, just at the edge of the small lawn in front of the house, sat three otters obviously a mother and two smaller young. As we watched they trotted along the shore then slipped into the water.
We crept out, still naked, and watched them cavorting among the huge fronds of seaweed until I slipped on the wet grass and the sudden movement caused them to dive, resurfacing again much farther out. Sandra came over and squeezed me, her full belly pressing its heat against my flesh.
'Thanks for bringing us here John. I love it.' We kissed and I marveled again at how hot and alive and heavy with life she had become. It was only as we turned back to the house that I noticed the mound.
It had been too dark the night before to see any details of the surrounding area but now I could see that the cottage was built on a small raised piece of land between two arms of a river. We had come across a small bridge last night but in the dark I had failed to notice it.
Behind the cottage, just where the rivers split, there was a huge stone cairn, standing eight to ten feet high and topped off with a cross which looked to be the same height again as the cairn and made of solid iron. Around the cairn there was a wrought iron fence with spiked railings jutting up towards the sky.
'Why would they put something like that out here?' she asked me 'I thought that cairns were usually built on top of hills?'
'I'm not sure. Maybe it's for someone who died either here or at sea near here. We can ask in town if you like?' I turned towards her, noticing the goose pimples which had been raised on her arms.
'Get yourself inside and put some clothes on. We don't want you to catch a chill. Anyway, by the time we get going and get to the town the shop will be open.'
When we eventually got to the shop it was ten o'clock. There had just been too many things to see on the drive down.
The shop held only basic foods-eggs, bacon, cheese, nothing too fancy-but Sandra had got over her cravings for exotica and we would be able to stock up with most of our needs for the week.
Sandra was the focus of much of the talk and was in danger of excessive mothering from some of the women we met. We turned down several offers of a warmer room closer to town and the shop owner took our list from us, promising that she would make it up and we could collect it later.
Luckily the hotel served late breakfast. The pace of life on the island moved slowly and you could run breakfast into lunch into evening meal into supper without leaving the hotel grounds. We managed to escape at one in the afternoon, weighed down by bacon and sausages and swilling with coffee.
It was only when we stopped by the shop to pick up our supplies that I remembered the cairn.
The shop keeper tried to hide her movement but I caught it-the sign against the evil eye, two pronged fingers stabbing at me as she spoke. 'You don't have to worry about that sir. It's only an old memorial. Some say there used to be a plaque fixed to it, but no one can remember what it's there for.'
I noticed that the rest of the customers in the shop had fallen silent. I supposed that the cairn was the focus for some old superstition. That didn't bother me, but I wasn't about to tell Sandra. Unlike me, she held a fascination for the supernatural. Anything that went bump in the night or was out of the ordinary, she fell for it.
I could never understand the fascination with scaring yourself half to death, but I knew that if she found out that there was something weird about the cairn, she would not stop until she had winkled out the story. In the car on the way to the cottage, I told her it was a war memorial and then let the subject drop. She didn't ask any questions.
We finally got back in late afternoon, having made numerous stops to marvel at the stunning variety of life around us. Sandra made a big show of hand-washing our traveling clothes and hanging them from a clothesline at the back of the house.
The rest of the day passed lazily as we sat on the lawn, drinking long drinks, watching the scenery, and making happy plans for our future. We took our food out onto the grassy area, sitting on an old rug and throwing occasional morsels to an inquisitive squirrel. I think that evening was the closest to heaven I have ever been.
Doctor Reid arrived around six o'clock and spent ten minutes reassuring himself that Sandra was not about to go into labour in the near future. He was gracious and gentlemanly and I could see that Sandra was charmed.
